"If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again”. At least, that’s how the saying goes. And I guess that there’s nothing really wrong with trying again. There is, though, everything wrong with trying again, so let me explain.

There will be times when we do something that we’ve not done before. It may work out fine the very first time that we do it, and that’s great. If, however, we get a different result to the one we wanted, what do we do? If we try again, we may simply repeat the same erroneous steps, and end up with the same result. We may give up, consoling ourselves with the notion that “at least we tried”, and giving ourselves a false sense of achievement. We are at least better than those who did nothing, yet we are still so far from those who actually did it.

Instead, think about it another way. Decide to do it or decide not to do it. Be bold and resolute either way. If you decide to do it, commit to doing it. Leave the trying for others, and be the one that does it. If it works out, celebrate what you’ve done. You decided to do it and you did it. If you get a different outcome, don’t try again. Stop. Work out what worked and do more of that. Work out what could have been better and do it better. And then do it. And when you’ve done it, celebrate what you’ve done.

Of course, you may reach a point where you just cannot get to where you want to be. In which case, celebrate your progress. Celebrate all that you have done. Celebrate all that you have learned. Celebrate that you’ve moved forward. Remember, there is no such thing as failure, only feedback. Then decide what you want to do next. And do it! You can do that, can’t you?